


Blue-Eyed Wolves

by AngeNoir



Series: Gifts for Tumblr Users [4]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: AU from season 1 episode 6, Canonical Character Death, Dubious Consent, F/M, Headcanon, Physical Abuse, Underage Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-02
Updated: 2012-10-02
Packaged: 2017-11-15 11:39:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/526900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngeNoir/pseuds/AngeNoir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Derek doesn’t know what to do. And he can’t admit that to anyone.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Derek's formative years are shaped by the fact that he has blue eyes and too-trusting of a heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blue-Eyed Wolves

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Chiazu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chiazu/gifts).



> NOTE: Dubious consent is the sex scene between 16 year old Derek and 23 year old Kate.
> 
> So I have to say I wrote this as a birthday present, hoping that [Chiazu](http://chiazu.tumblr.com) would enjoy it. I watched up to episode 6 over the weekend to have a better grasp on the show (beyond what tumblr has shown me in gifsets and what the fandom has shown to me in fanfiction). I write original werewolf fiction, so that's influenced this story a lot - especially the idea of dominant wolves needing an anchor to the pack that isn't going to be vying for dominance.
> 
> I will welcome all criticism because frankly, I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm blaming this all on tumblr.
> 
> And I will reiterate - this is AU from episode 6 because I haven't seen past it. All I know is what's in those first six episodes and the fact that I'm around the age Derek is at the end of this story and I certainly wouldn't be able to handle it. I just have a lot of emotions towards a guy who's lost everything and still has to put together some plan of action.
> 
> ~~~~  
> I may or may not write more when I watch more. I just really enjoy Derek's character. And I like Scott. He's adorably naive.  
> 

Derek Hale is the youngest, and sometimes he resents that and the limitations that come with not reaching his majority yet because Laura and Jason stick him with watching over the younger cousins while they run with the adults in the woods. Not that Derek could run in the woods with them yet, what with his wolf still underdeveloped and not strong enough yet, but that means Derek is left behind with Gabby and Sam – short for Samantha – and three brats who refuse to listen to him. And while he doesn’t mind being around Gabby and Sam because they’re really cool aunts, he does kinda wish they weren’t so lovey-dovey all the time. There’s only so much he can take before he starts getting antsy himself, after all.

“Derek?”

The call is loud in the forest, and Derek hunkers down where he was hiding, wrapping his arms in a tight circle and glaring at the floor. He really doesn’t have a chance to _not_ be noticed; in a family of werewolves, there had been nowhere a little kid could hide that someone wouldn’t find him eventually. Still, he’d hoped they wouldn’t have noticed his disappearance for some time.

Then again, this _is_ his fourteenth birthday, the day his wolf fully matures and his training as an adult really begins. It makes sense that someone would be keeping an eye out for him. Couldn’t have a rouge werewolf running in the woods, after all, not with the Argent clan nearby. The Code prevented any unprovoked attacks, but a rogue werewolf was a guaranteed exception to the code.

The leaves crunch outside the little copse of trees Derek’s secluded in, and Derek can catch a whiff of his uncle Peter. If he can smell his uncle, most likely his uncle can smell him – but Uncle Peter doesn’t barge in or intrude. Instead, there’s more crunching and then a sigh. “You okay, buddy? Family’s kinda gone nuts. You’re not supposed to go through your first shift as an adult wolf alone, after all.”

Derek swallows and says rebelliously, “Moonrise isn’t for another three hours.”

“I know, kiddo.” More swishing of leaves, and then Peter continues, “Still. Being with the pack is a big thing, you know? Something you’re supposed to do. Have fun with it. You’re a full-grown wolf, now, and you don’t have to stay with the pups anymore.”

“’M a freak,” Derek whispers.

“Why is that?”

Derek swallows nervously as his uncle’s face started to come into view, and he drops his head immediately.

There’s silence, and then the sound of his uncle walking over to where he was curled up on the ground. “Hey, kiddo. What’s up?” There’s a long pause, and then his uncle’s hand curls under his chin, tilts his head up.

Derek closes his eyes tight, but Peter makes a small noise of surprise. Curling his skinny shoulders closer, he jerks his chin out of his uncle’s hand and huddles on the ground.

“Hey, Der. Derek. It’s okay.”

“No it’s not,” Derek mutters, voice muffled by his hands and arm. “No one else is like this.”

The leaves crunch even more as Uncle Peter sits down, and his knee brushes Derek’s side. “That’s because no one else is special like you.”

“Yeah, thanks a lot, uncle,” Derek growls. “We’re all special in our own ways, right?”

Peter leans over Derek’s body, one big hand splaying against the small of Derek’s back and rubbing. A family of werewolves means physical language, not spoken, and though Derek wants to deny what he’s smelling, Peter’s calm, gentle. Caring, in his own way, even if Mom and Dad make noises about Peter’s temper and viciousness. “No. You’re special. You know how long it’s been that I’ve seen a wolf who’s shown blue eyes?”

Derek swallows hard and manages to whisper, “Does this mean I’m not a Beta?”

“What else would you be?” Peter asks, and his voice is calm, matter-of-fact. Derek draws strength from that solid rock and shoves the tears and panic back down, but doesn’t answer.

After a moment, Peter lets out another sigh. “Okay. Fact time. You’re not an alpha, right? Alphas have red eyes, and you don’t. You’re not an Omega, right? You’ve got a pack. So what does that leave?”

“I have _blue_ eyes, Peter!” Derek snarls, and he’s more than slightly embarrassed when his voice cracks. He can tell Peter’s trying to keep his lip from twitching in amusement.

“That you do. Look – you’re still a beta. You kill an alpha, you’re still gonna become one. But you’re more than that.” Peter pauses, looking at Derek closely for a long minute before letting out a bone-deep sigh. “In a pack – in some of the bigger packs, the alpha can be challenged _weekly_ for alpha position. Right? You know that?”

Derek nods, because Peter’s offering an explanation and anything – _anything_ – is better than having a physical difference that separates him from his family. He’s different enough, geeky and awkward enough, in school, and Laura and Jason _both_ matured at twelve, not fourteen. This is – this is beyond the last straw.

Peter laughs a little. “’Course you know that. You’re not the one skimping on your history lessons, right?”

A flush rising in his cheeks, Derek uncurls enough to punch Peter’s knee, which makes Peter laugh, of course. Derek’s not nearly full-grown enough to make a punch feel anything different than a tap.

After shaking his head, Peter sobers and runs his hand up Derek’s shoulder to bury in Derek’s floppy hair, ruffling gently. “Blue-eyed wolves won’t challenge an alpha, unless the alpha’s mad or destroying the pack. They’re – they’re the baseline of the pack. They care about everyone, and worry about everyone. They are great organizers and they hold the pack together, even though they can be more dominant than any other wolf besides the alpha. A wolf pack with a blue-eyed wolf is a blessed pack indeed.”

Derek blinks in surprise as Peter leans down, letting his nose touch Derek’s the way his wolf would nose at Derek’s muzzle were they wolves. “Mark my words, Derek. You’ll be a credit to any pack you live with, whether you stay here with your mate or find another pack you enjoy. Blue-eyed wolves have the biggest hearts and the strongest spines.”

“No one else has blue eyes, though,” Derek makes pains to point out, even as he grasps hungrily at the idea that his blue eyes weren’t a curse.

Peter laughs, and there’s a vicious edge to it – one Derek’s intimately familiar with, from Peter’s lessons on fighting and stealth, from _Laura’s_ lessons, from his mother snarling at one of the aunts over who eats first from their kill. “No, no one else does,” Peter says, and his eyes flash golden orange. “Most wolves have yellow, or orange, eyes. Most wolves have a need to be top dog. You don’t. You’d be content following another alpha for the rest of your life, never making a play for his position.” Peter pauses, and then adds on, “Or her position, I suppose.”

That doesn’t sound like a plus to Derek, and he frowns. “So I’m a pussy?” he says, voice rough and claws growing out of his fingers to dig into his bare arms. As much as it was fall, and getting chilly enough to wear long-sleeved shirts and turtlenecks even with werewolf blood running hot, Derek hadn’t paused his rush from the house when he’d looked into the bathroom mirror and seen blue eyes reflected back at him.

“Eh. Others will call you that, certainly. Personally, I’d see it as more of a blessing. All the strength of a beta, but you don’t have the – the constant anger and temper most wolves have. Only you can make it into a strength, though. Will you?”

 

*

 

Derek is still the youngest of his family, and the only one in his family who woke up with blue eyes on the day of his maturation, and the all-elbows-and-knees kid that sits in the back of English and stares at their substitute teacher all throughout October.

She smells of strawberries and wildness, of a tart sweetness that captivates and allures as much as it warns. Her name is Kate Argent, and Derek knows she’s in the family business because he’s seen her uncle, the head of the Argent hunters, along with her in his dad’s living room when they were discussing boundaries, treaties, and truces. Derek’s family isn’t going to be wiped out – they’d traveled away from all that, settled here, with the hopes of carving this town as territory without bothering anyone else. The Argent family has a base here, but it’s one they cycle through. The Argent clan is one of the biggest, and one of the ones that takes care of pretty much all of the west coast. They knew what the Hale family had been running from, had checked in with Derek’s grandfather when they had first settled in the house and Derek hadn’t been more than five or six. Since then, the Argents sometimes come over to discuss a supernatural creature killing, to see whether, as wolves, they’d known or could tell them something about it. Kate comes with her uncle, and she’s strong, powerful. She knows what he is, and she sometimes glances over at him and smiles.

Derek thinks he might live for her smiles.

Laura notices he has a crush (thankfully, she doesn’t know on who) and teases him relentlessly. “Little sophmore’s got a crush, huh?” she asks, and her voice isn’t exactly friendly but it’s not loud enough for the kids around to hear, either. Derek’s gotten used to the tough brand of love that Laura and his dad and Peter show. Jason is actually nicer than Laura, and dad jokes every day that Laura will rule the pack soon enough. Still, no one wants to think of dad growing too old to lead the hunts, so that talk ends quick enough, even if Peter’s eyes go hard at that and he body-checks Laura – subtly – when they leave the kitchen.

Kate doesn’t look like she’d body-check Derek if she gets annoyed at him. She doesn’t look like she’ll break his arm, either, like Jason does when Derek doesn’t get the lessons on fighting and hunting fast enough. She doesn’t look like she’ll mock Derek for being spindly, like Laura does. She looks… perfect.

One November day, at the end of class, Derek stops by the desk (Mrs. Reva is out on maternity leave) and puts his English essay down on it, waiting because English is his last class and Laura’s always driving off and leaving him to walk home alone anyway.

“Oh, hey Derek. How’re you doing?” Kate asks, looking up from putting her keys into her purse.

Derek nervously fidgets at the edge of the desk, saying, “You wanted to see me after class? You wrote this note on my paper—”

He breaks off when she smiles, like the sun springing forth on a cloudy day, dazzling in its brightness. “Yeah, I just – this was really brilliant, Derek, and you need to work on your grammar and spelling, but with some editing I think you should enter it into a contest or something. It’s really, really good, you know?”

And she moves from behind the desk, comes up close. He’s sixteen, so he’s not short, but he’s still growing and she’s got an inch or two on him. His mouth is dry as she throws an overly familiar arm over his shoulder. “I just – maybe we could hang out, you could tell me about your writing? Do you write a lot?”

He shakes his head mutely no.

 

*

 

It starts to become a regular thing, Kate driving Derek home. If they stop for coffee on the way back, park in the wide woods and just talk, well… it’s not like Laura cares. Laura’s got a slew of boyfriends, is confidently secure in her attraction and sexuality. Derek’s still coming into his own as a beta, but Kate doesn’t mind. Kate is even a hunter, so he can talk about how he’s worried that when his dad gets too old, Laura and Peter will fight over alpha position and one of them will end up dead. They’re competitive, and while they’re the most alike they’re also the two most likely to butt heads over sometimes the stupidest things.

Kate talks about how her uncle is so staid, so _boring_. She asks Derek if he’s boring and Derek answers immediately, _no_.

 

*

 

Derek loses his virginity around Christmas time. It’s not a special time, really, not for wolves who don’t measure time by days, but still, there are a few family members from out of town staying at their house in the woods. Too many people cooped up in a finite set of rooms makes all the wolves antsy, and Laura’s been disappearing almost before dinners. Jason’s out with a couple of his friends, all the adults are remarking about how Derek’s gotten taller but ‘ _my god, Janet, he looks like a beanpole! Aren’t you feeding the poor boy?_ ’ and Derek doesn’t need that from everyone, not when he’s still coming to grips with his bigger wolf form.

Apparently, Christmas at Kate’s _is_ a big deal, which is why she bails. He’s just hanging out in the woods when his phone vibrates in his jeans pocket and Kate’s on the other end. She seems satisfied he answered, even as she makes noises of surprise and protestations that he doesn’t have to come meet up with her, she was just bored and managed to snag some hours free from too many relatives.

They meet at the edge of the woods, her in her flashy car and Derek in his hoodie and jeans and boots that crunch in the snow. He gets into the passenger side and the warmth floods his body, makes him relax in a way that has him half-closing his eyes and slumping in the seat.

“Cold?” she chuckles.

“You have no idea,” Derek mutters into the edge of his hoodie, flexing his numb toes and fingers and wondering if it will look to childish to blow on them, to rub feeling back into his nose.

She turns the car into the woods, navigating to the edge of a steep hill. Derek knows this place, of course – even if he never ran through the woods with his family, who could miss the rumors of the best place to go to _do it_ in school? Certainly not someone with oversensitive ears who was still learning how to control his senses back in sixth grade. He blinks in surprise, turns to look at her, and she’s left the car running and the heat on but her jacket’s off, those nimble fingers unzipping her jeans, showing glimpses of black lace and moon-pale skin.

Derek abruptly feels awkward, rough, too lanky and coarse, but before he can say anything else she’s shimmying her hips and legs, kicking off shoes and pants, and his mouth goes dry as all blood rushes elsewhere.

“You gonna stay all wrapped up?” she purrs, voice low and husky and suddenly he can’t get his own pants undone, can’t move fast enough.

She laughs, high and bright and a little mocking, making Derek blush and bite his tongue. “Need help there, Der?” she coos, and suddenly she’s straddling him, silky smooth thighs on either side of his thighs, her fuzzy, _tight_ sweater in his face as she leans down, tilts the chair back until Derek’s lying almost flat. He knows his eyes are wide, knows he’s acting like a kid, like an idiot, but before he can do anything to fix that her long, thin fingers are sliding up under his hoodie, running over his belly and he lets out an involuntary yelp at the cold fingers and the tickling sensations that are familiar from his own hand but somehow vastly different from hers.

“Teenagers,” she sighs, and then her fingers are sliding down, undoing his button and zipper, sliding his boxers down enough to let his painfully hard cock pop out and he whines in the back of his throat, eyes wide and so, so on board with this while at the same time, wishing things were going just a little slower, wishing he had time to get his feet under him, be ready.

But she’s more experienced, right? It’s okay to lay back, let her take control, because she knows what she wants and Derek will probably mess it up. Especially considering that her slim fingers are like hot points against his dick and he’s going to come embarrassingly soon.

She strokes over his dick, leans down again to reach behind her as her lips, pink and strawberry-tasting, slant over his mouth. He responds with more enthusiasm than control, hands clutching at the seat beneath him because he’s terrified his control isn’t good enough to keep his fingers from lengthening into claws, not for his first time, not with this heaven happening above him right now.

She’s shifting over him, her underwear gone and it’s startling how he managed to miss that, how he was so preoccupied with spit-shiny lips and the swell of her breasts inside her sweater and the narrow-minded focus to keep his hands still that he didn’t _notice_ her moving around, and somehow she’s got two condoms in her hand, expertly opening one and setting the other in the driver’s seat.

“I’d roll this on with my mouth,” she whispers in his ear, “but even I’m not that flexible. Just imagine it, hmm?”

And oh god is he imagining it, imagining those lips pursed and rounded and sliding down over his cock and then her fingers mimic the movement and he can’t help himself, his hips are jerking up roughly and his hands fly from the seat to her arms, holding tight as he gasps out her name.

“That’s it, baby, come for me,” she murmurs, biting at his ear and his hands slide to her waist, slide up under her sweater, cup her breasts and bra and she’s pumping his cock now.

He comes embarrassingly quickly, the world around him whiting out and his voice is choked over her name, garbling it out around bestial whines and snarls as he gives himself over to the pleasure.

When he comes back to himself, she’s put a new condom on, and he’s too sensitive, shying away from her touches, but she’s not stopping. “My turn, pretty boy,” she whispers against his lips, and he shoves her sweater up, baring her breasts in black lace, nipples pebbled and playing peekaboo against the gaps in the cups. The windows are fogged, his breath is ragged, and she’s shiny, wet, rubbing the tip of his latex-covered dick against her folds and he just – it’s too much, too quickly, and maybe he shouldn’t be having second thoughts (he is a guy, what guy wouldn’t want this, why is he worried about this?) but he is, he’s not sure and she’s still his substitute teacher and she’s still seven years older than him and he just wants a chance to catch his breath, think this through—

But he’s a sixteen year old male, and his recovery time is pretty much nil at this point, so he’s hard in her hands and he figures well, it’s okay, right? She knows what she’s doing, she got him off, he should get her off too – common courtesy? And it’s not like his dick hates what’s happening, even if his brain is overthinking it.

Then she’s sinking down onto his dick and he’s forgetting why he even had second thoughts because this is – this is nirvana, this is heaven and he never wants to leave, and her hips are rolling against his, her hands are holding his hands to her breasts, her mouth is biting and sucking at his tongue and he can’t keep from helplessly rutting up into her, can’t keep from feeling that this… this will be okay. Everything’s going to be fine. Kate knows what she’s doing, Kate likes him, Kate _understands_ him, and everything’s going to be alright.

 

*

 

Mrs. Reva comes back part-time in April, but since Derek’s class is in the afternoon he still gets to see Kate, who covers Mrs. Reva’s after lunch classes. Since January, she’ll smile at him randomly, and he’ll fumble in class, cheeks heating up. Thankfully, he’s already so awkward and so ignored by the rest of the student population that no one makes the correlation.

Laura figures out that he’s hiding someone in April as well, and she asks him bluntly if he needs her to buy him condoms.

“ _Laura_!” he chokes out, mortified.

She looks at him matter-of-factly. She’s blunter than Jason, or even their cousin Timothy, Peter’s son. She’d be a good leader, he thinks, but so would Peter. Peter at least pretends to care about the slower members of the pack (of which Derek most definitely is). Laura has no patience with stupidity or weakness, and Derek’s suffered more than one broken bone or deep gash at her hands. Still, she’s his sister, and she’s looking out for him – he gets that. “If you’re doing it – and you are, what with how you’re coming back so often with your scent washed clean – you need to not be making baby werewolves in the world until you’re ready.”

“I’m fine,” he mutters, ducking his head.

Laura cocks her head at him, eyes glowing a dark gold. “When will the family get to meet her?”

“What?” he asks, and his voice cracks on the word.

“Or him, if it’s a him – and the condoms are still necessary even if it’s a guy.”

“No it’s – it’s a girl, I mean, Laura no, I’m not ready—”

At that, Laura pauses – they had been walking to Laura’s car, because it’s one of the few days Laura’s _not_ out with her boyfriend of the week – and meets his gaze steadily. “If you can’t introduce her to the family, maybe you shouldn’t be hanging out with her,” she states baldly.

Anger roars in Derek’s belly, licks up towards his chest. As a born werewolf, someone who’s lived with it since birth, he doesn’t lose control of the transformation (well, okay, once, but he had never had a blowjob before) but anger always makes him sharp, the fury making fangs lengthen in his mouth.

Casually, Laura reaches out and snaps his finger backwards.

He gasps, the pain knocking him out of it, and while he’s not transforming-angry anymore he’s still pissed when he hisses, “Maybe I just want something special before you guys ruin it. I don’t see you telling dad how many guys you sleep with! What is this, the tenth guy in three months?”

She snarls, eyes flashing gold again, and punches him hard enough in the stomach that he can feel a rib go. Turning on her heel, she stalks to the car. “Find your own way home,” she calls out, voice husky and primal and full of howls just kept in check.

Derek reaches into his pocket and dials Kate.

She’s free, and when they meet up it's all Derek can do not to complain about Laura. Normally, he’d be unloading, finding solace in the only one who’ll listen to him, but today, Kate’s the one unloading. Her brother is apparently back in town shortly, bringing his eleven-year old daughter and while Kate adores the girl, her big brother is a pain in the neck.

“He just wants to control my life and I’m sick of it,” she complains.

They’re curled up in the backseat of her car, and if Derek’s breathing a little deep to imprint her scent on his brain, well, she either isn’t noticing or isn’t caring.

Of course, then she pokes him in the side. “Hey, pretty boy.”

He grunts, tilts his head up to look at her and smile. “You’re an adult now. Tell him to fuck off,” he says simply. “I can’t wait until I’m eighteen and can tell _Laura_ to fuck off.”

“I thought wolves are supposed to stay together with their packs,” she muses, and her voice is a lot more awake and aware all of a sudden when all Derek wants to do is sleep curled up next to her.

“Don’t have to,” he murmurs. “Other packs to go to. We split off from another pack a while back.”

She goes still next to him, and then her hand is in his hair, stroking, and he growls contentedly at the tingling sensation that runs through his body. “You did?” she whispers.

“Yeah,” he sighs, wiggling a little in happiness. “Usedta live in New York. Moved when I was four, five. Before Grandda got hit by lightning.” He shudders – he’d watched as his grandfather had been electrocuted that stormy night, watched as the wolf was burned out of him and he was left as a human, half-paralyzed and weak (electricity still terrifies Derek). Normal wolves would abandon a member like that; they bring down the pack, after all, and dad pointed out that there was a good nursing home in Beacon Hills, one that would take care of Grandda. Peter had argued against it, saying that pack was pack even if the wolf leaves. In the end, it was mom who insisted Grandda stay and in return for dad’s keeping Grandda Peter had bowed to dad’s dominance and let dad become Alpha of the pack without a fight.

“Why’d you move?”

The words drag him out of the half-doze, out of his memories, and he blinks lazily. “Don’t remember,” he mutters. “Was a kid, y’know?”

She drags her nails over his scalp, and he relaxes against her side. “Well, I’m glad you came here,” she says.

“Me too,” he says softly.

 

*

 

It’s a full-moon night, only three weeks from the end of school. Generally speaking, full-moon nights mean staying home from school, sitting in the house with the other wolves, the humans out for the day while the wolves, restless and antsy, try not to tear apart the furniture (Sam always gives such sobering lectures that make you feel so ashamed for leaving claw marks on the upholstery, even if your little cousins had been antagonizing you all afternoon). Today, though, Derek’s more anxious than normal. He knows that, come the end of the school year, Chris Argent will take Kate and move to another hunter home, and he wants to see Kate as much as possible before it’s time for her to leave. She promises she’ll be back come November, if Derek will still be around. (Derek points out that he won’t be eighteen for another year and a half yet – “ _I’m not the one leaving_ ,” he had said, and she laughed and kissed him breathless.)

Strangely enough, Laura’s feeling anxious too, and insists on going to school. “I’m next in line for Alpha,” she points out that morning as she works to convince their dad to let her go. “I’ll be able to control myself while at school. I just don’t want to sit around _here_ , staring at everyone.”

(Derek knows why she wants to get away from the house, especially when Peter glowers from the edge of the table. Laura thinks she’s next in line for Alpha, and she does have the dominance and control necessary, but she’ll have to fight Peter and Peter won’t back down for her like he backed down to their dad. Sitting around the house means tensions between them will rise, making it that much harder to keep the transformation under control until moonrise.)

Finally, with Laura arguing the whole meal through, their dad agrees. “Fine. If you want to go, go. But if you don’t come straight back from school, miss, I’ll know of it and you’ll have a lot of pain to hold off the transformation that much longer.”

Derek perks up. “Can I go too, dad?”

Mom gives his dad a significant look that doesn’t bode well, and Derek shifts anxiously in his seat. Finally, his mom begins, gently, “Maybe it’s better for you to stick around, Derek, hmm? It’s harder to keep the transformation under control if you’re around the girl you like, and you’re already so nervous.”

Derek blushes. “No, mom, it’ll be fine. I’m fine.”

“Did you switch anchors?” Peter says, and his voice is teasing even if Derek’s not sure what Peter’s teasing about. Switching anchors is something Derek had never heard of, and he turns to Peter to ask how that’s possible – Jason’s always told him the pack is the strongest and best anchor, to hold onto it – when dad growls at Peter and Peter smirks but leaves the room.

“I can watch over him,” Laura sighs. “Please, can we just go, we’re going to be _late_.”

Dad looks at her suspiciously, but Mom frowns at Derek. “I’d feel better if you stayed home, Derek.”

“Please, mom?” he asks, and their dad sighs, but nods.

“ _David_ ,” their mom goes, but Derek’s already out the door, nabbing his backpack from his room and running out to where Laura’s already sitting in her Camaro.

“Why’d you tell them to let me go with you?” Derek asks, because Laura never does anything without a reason.

Laura just gives him a long look and starts the car. “I’ll pick you up at the end of school.”

“Where will you be?” Derek asks suspiciously, starting to realize that Laura didn’t actually want to _be_ in school.

Laura looks down her nose at him. “One day you’ll understand. For right now, none of your business.”

She pulls up to the school and jerks her chin at the door. With a disgusted sigh, he gets out.

And maybe his mom was right – everything in school is grating on his nerves now, with the full moon pulsing in time with his heart. He can feel it on the edge of his awareness, and everyone’s voices are unnaturally loud and abrasive. He spends most of the day with his head down and his hands clenched in his pockets. His teachers, at the least, don’t pick on him.

He doesn’t realize he’s listening for Kate’s voice after lunch until he _can’t find it_. He decides to come in late for chemistry and seeks out the classroom she’s normally in – and there’s a sub, because of Mrs. Reva, but it’s not Kate. Confused, he walks in late, tries not to transform at the berating yell of Mr. Johnson, and slinks to the back of the class.

In the middle of the class period, with Derek focusing in on his textbook and trying to ignore all the voices around him, the door opens and the secretary pokes her head in. “Laura’s here to pick up Derek,” she says in a soft voice, but everyone notices and the cessation of noise is what makes Derek lift his head and blink at her. It’s the middle of the school day, and Laura was off with whoever. Why would she come back?

Laura’s standing in the office, ramrod stiff and the scent of grief and pain so thick on her that it takes Derek a minute to notice there’s the smell of burnt flesh, too. It’s cloying and sweet in a way that it really shouldn’t be, and he swallows hard, because something’s terribly, terribly wrong.

 

*

 

The hospital smells too much like death and sickness. It’s harder and harder to hold onto his control here, and the full moon is a constant roar in the back of his head. He’s sitting in the waiting room, claws digging into the palm of his hand, when tiny fingers curl onto the edge of his shirt.

“Go away, kid.” The words force themselves out of a tight throat, past curved fangs.

“You’re bleeding.” The words are solemn, _young_ , and his eyes look up to see a little kid, short with a buzz cut and a shirt buttoned up the wrong way. “Are you here to see the doctor?”

“Go. _Away_.”

“Stiles, c’mere, we can see her now,” comes an older man’s voice, and the kid looks up before looking back at Derek.

Slowly, the kid pats Derek’s knee, whispers, “I’m sorry,” and trots off.

Derek doesn’t want the kid’s sympathy. He doesn’t want anything. He wants to go back in time and not leave home. He wants to warn his family. He wants his dad back alive, _Jason_ back alive, he wants—

“Derek.”

He looks up at that, at Laura’s voice, and her eyes are red even as her lips are thinned and her composure intact.

“We’re leaving.”

 

*

 

“He’s scarred all on one side. Not healing,” Laura says in short, clipped sentences the day after the full moon. She’s on the edge, and Derek can hear the grief even if she’s not showing any of it. “He’s not healing. I’m putting him in the nursing home dad talked about.”

Derek swallows back the reminder that Peter _hated_ the nursing home, hated abandoning pack members to humans, swallows back any argument at all because with dad dead and Peter no longer wolf… Laura’s alpha. And Derek desperately needs a pack. He can feel all their absences like empty holes, and he doesn’t know how he’ll control himself now that the pack’s gone. His anchor’s just… _gone_.

They stop by the house. Laura to settle the insurance claim, Derek to salvage whatever he can. Laura tells him everyone died except Peter, only the wolf was burned out of Peter like the lightning burned it out of Grandda.

Derek steps out into the spring air and smells nothing but _Kate_.

And he knows.

 

*

 

Laura thinks he threw up because of the smell of burned flesh, because of the mess their house is. Derek doesn’t correct her.

Laura also mentions Kate’s smell, but because Laura had been taking AP Lit she’d never had Kate as a sub, so it’s more indirect – ‘ _the smell is familiar, I think I’ve caught it once before – do you know who it is, Derek?_ ’

Derek doesn’t answer that question. Or any of the others.

In fact, it takes Derek three months to start talking again.

 

*

 

Laura takes Derek to New York, to the pack that they left when Grandda split away. Derek knows why they left, now – the pack’s more vicious than their own, and that’s saying something. Almost none of the pack has ever gone to a school, and there is no truce with the nearby hunters. And boy are there a lot of nearby hunters.

Laura had gotten her report card and high school diploma mailed to her here. Derek gets his 10th grade report card mailed to him and never completes high school.

He desperately wants to.

 

*

 

Four years later, Derek’s twenty-one, no longer a beanpole by _anyone's_ standards, and a bouncer at a local club. It’s not a lot of money, but it’s enough to make pack dues (this pack needs all the money it can get, frankly, and regularly pimps out wolves to get the money for the rundown mansion they all live in [and sometimes ‘pimps’ is a very literal, not metaphorical or sarcastic, verb]). Laura’s bartender at the same club, and alpha enough to maintain her status as alpha even though they live with another pack. She’s boyfriend to the alpha, actually, and while she only has Derek in her small pack, she can fight Kevin to a standstill. They both break apart before the fight gets deadly, but Derek’s heart jumps in his throat every time they come to blows because maybe this time, Laura won’t win, or Laura will win completely, and both of those options mean they’re stuck with the rest of the pack (who pick on Derek mercilessly for his blue eyes, who shun him and treat him like dirt).

Derek just wants to find Kate and hunt her down, but even that isn’t an option because she’s a hunter and until he can prove that she’s the one who burnt down the house, killing her will only give the hunters a reason to kill him.

Laura seems to have forgotten entirely about the burnt house and the smell of charred flesh that never leaves Derek’s mind. She fits in with the pack because she’s just as harsh and vicious as they are. And while Derek’s glad that she’s fitting in, that she’s with just one guy now and she seems happy with him, instead of the endless stream of guys before and never seeming happy at all with any of them, he misses the closeness of the pack.

His new anchor is his bone-deep rage, and he holds onto that with all his might.

 

*

 

Six months later, he and Laura are on their own. Derek isn’t sure what made Laura break up from that alpha, what made her go off on her own and take him with her, but he’s glad that it happened. Glad that he can train and practice and work one-on-one with Laura. As much as he practiced and trained as a kid – born werewolf, after all – it had always been with hunting in mind. Not war.

Derek is preparing for war.

 

*

 

A year and a half later, Derek’s newly turned twenty-three when Laura disappears. He knows she had started poking around Beacon Hills only by chance, and he decides to go back there and see if he can find her.

He’s halfway there when there is an empty hole that opens in his heart and soul and he realizes that he is now utterly, utterly alone.

Finding half of Laura’s body is only confirmation. Derek refuses to cry – he hasn’t cried once, not even when he found out it was Kate who had been the one to kill his family – and instead renews his vow to himself.

_I will be harder than any of them. I will avenge my family._

_And then, one night, I will meet them._

 

*

 

He finds two kids on his property. One’s scent is vaguely familiar, but he can’t place it.

 

*

 

The second is apparently a werewolf. A newly turned one, freaking out because of – well, _werewolf_. Derek would have had sympathy at one time.

Now, all he sees is a link to the alpha that could help him find the hunters that killed Laura. He could train this new wolf, teach him for the alpha, and maybe then the alpha will extend an invitation to his pack.

(He refuses to believe it was another wolf that killed Laura. She’d held her own against _Peter_ and _Kevin_ for fuck’s sake. If there’s an alpha that could take her down…)

 

*

 

Derek’s running scared and he knows it. Derek’s looking for answers and not getting anywhere. Derek’s training, spending most of his days doing nothing but running for five hours straight, lifting weights, trying to track down elusive scents and put together clues without letting anyone know that’s what he’s doing. He’s trying to find the alpha, and the one night he gets close to it, he gets shot.

By Kate fucking Argent, no less.

He has to – has to find help. This would have been the plan, but later, when he’d gotten his revenge, not now. Now he has to find Scott, because Scott can help him.

Scott dumps him on Stiles, promises to find the cure, and all Derek can do is pray.

Praying, of course, is never enough. Stiles takes him to the vet’s place (still the same doctor, the one his dad and mom used to visit even though they never told Derek why they would visit him) and Derek swallows his pride and asks for help. Stiles refuses. Of course. Then again, Stiles hasn’t grown up like Derek, hasn’t seen death and destruction at that age. Stiles would be upset being told to cut off someone’s arm.

But Derek needs someone, and he has no one. Derek needs help, and there’s no one to ask it from, no one he’d _trust_ to ask it from in the first place.

Scott comes through, Derek gets his cure, fights not to scream from the pain, and Scott and Stiles stand there like twin idiots, staring at him curiously. Derek tries to imagine Scott as a pack member and while Scott isn’t ideal… Derek’s desperate and just wants someone around. He doesn’t want to drive Scott away, but Scott seems insistent on seeing the worst in Derek no matter what takes place. Derek tries to train him, tries to teach him about pain and about leaving behind love that weakens you, and Scott ignores him and gets control anyway.

Derek feels useless, weak.

And that’s _before_ he feels claws puncture his lung and heart, lift him off the ground.

 

*

 

Derek doesn’t know what to do. And he can’t admit that to anyone.

 


End file.
